Children could be protected from a potentially lethal parasitic disease if dogs were fitted with insecticide-impregnated collars, suggest authors of a study in THE LANCET this week.

Zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis is caused by transmission of a parasite, Leishmania infantum, from animals (mostly domestic dogs) by blood-sucking sandflies. In people, clinical symptoms of the disease, which is often fatal if left untreated, include fever, swollen liver and spleen, and anaemia.

Clive Da

Researchers in this week’s issue of The Lancet have developed a new method that can accurately predict how tumours will behave by the genes they express.
Dr Kathy Pritchard-Jones and her colleagues, from the Institute of Cancer Research, UK, studied children who had the commonest form of Wilms’ tumour with favourable histology. Overall, these children have a good chance of survival, but little is know about the genetic alterations that determine their outcome.

The group used a new metho

New macular degeneration link found

Scientists at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center have come a step closer to understanding the genetics of macular degeneration, a disease of the retina that affects 13 million Americans, and causes the loss of central vision.

Research scientist Radha Ayyagari, Ph.D., has found that a gene associated with one retinal disease, retinitis pigmentosa, also causes a form of macular degeneration. In the August issue of Genomics, Ayyaga

When you gaze at a bowl of fruit, why don’t some of the bananas look red, some of the apples look purple and some of the grapes look yellow?

This question isn’t as nonsensical as it may sound. When your brain processes the information coming from your eyes, it stores the information about an object’s shape in one place and information about its color in another. So it’s something of a miracle that the shapes and colors of each fruit are combined seamlessly into distinct objects when you lo

Scientists in the past decade have discovered that remnants of ancient germ line infections called human endogenous retroviruses make up a substantial part of the human genome. Once thought to be merely “junk” DNA and inactive, many of these elements, in fact, perform functions in human cells.

Now, a new study by John McDonald of the University of Georgia and King Jordan at the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institutes of Health, suggests for the first time th

A physics professor’s invention to decontaminate industrial wastewater could become a powerful new weapon against anthrax.

Peter McIntyre and a group of colleagues at Texas A&M University have developed a cost-effective device to produce high energy electron beams that can break down harmful organic molecules in water – and destroy bacteria such as anthrax in food – or even on mail.

“William Cooper at the University of North Carolina showed that high-powered beams of e